Red Rising ruined my month

I am an addict.

When I find a book series that I like, I become obsessed.

I lose sleep binging audiobooks into the late hours of the night. I rot in bed with my eyes glued to my eReader.

It was this obsession that made me binge the Wheel of Time book series in a month and a half.

My latest obsession was the last thing I expected.

On the recommendation of a friend, I checked out the sci-fi series: Red Rising.

This is not my usual read. I love fantasy, magic systems, and distinct worldbuilding unrelated to our history.

To me, Red Rising was just another Hunger Games clone. A dystopian sci-fi story that fell along familiar, cliché tropes.

Red Rising is all those things… and so much more.

Part of being a writer is consuming media and understanding what makes it work.

As Brandon Sanderson says, writers are like chefs.

So what makes Red Rising so "bloody damn" good to someone like me:

Nuance is for cowards:

When I read The Sword of Kaigen, I rolled my eyes at how on the nose the author was with their themes of government propaganda.

At the time, I thought good writing was about a nuanced and complex exploration of themes. Now, my position has evolved.

There is something to be said about being direct. The clarity creates a message that is much easier to connect with.

Red Rising falls back on the classic theme of class warfare, where a poor underclass is exploited in a hierarchical system, and our hero must rise to fight against it.

The author makes this color-based class system even more on the nose through genetic modification.

The Gold upper class is literally a better species of human: they are smarter, stronger, and taller than the lower-class Reds.

The social and physical advantages of the Gold ruling class make the infiltration of our working-class Red main character all the more interesting to read.

Best Character Voice Ever:

The main character, Darrow, is by far the most compelling and powerful character voice that I've ever experienced.

I chalk this up to a few things:

Number 1:

He is the ultimate reluctant hero, a character forced into the role of a revolutionary leader by the people and social forces around him.

The author does an incredible job of balancing Darrow's complex emotions: his anger at the injustice he and his class have experienced, his fear of not living up to expectations, his growing love for the members of the Gold class he befriends, and his commitment to achieving another person's dream.

Number 2:

This balancing act is supported by evocative prose.

Even as an underage, uneducated miner, there is a poetry to his language that is sophisticated without breaking immersion.

Number 3:

Red Rising is written in a first-person, present-tense point of view.

This creates an intimacy and immediacy that, combined with the above, pulls you into the story.

This POV was so powerful, I now find it hard to write in past tense.

Low Fat, High Stakes:

Red Rising is my kind of story.

At its core, it is a spy thriller where the main character goes undercover to infiltrate an elite society.

There is political intrigue, betrayal, backstabbing, and conflicts of interest as the main character must balance his mission with his growing relationships.

On top of that, the main form of combat consists of duels with razor-sharp whip-swords that can cut through metal!

The first book is the most like the Hunger Games. The main difference (which makes it 100 times more interesting) is the group element.

The Gold students are put into competing houses and forced to reenact the history of humanity by conquering and enslaving their enemies. There are alliances, coups, civil wars, and a revolution that are all fun to read.

In Book 2, the world expands and I was most impressed by how the author cuts the fat and ratchets up the stakes.

For example, the main character is given a mission to be a suicide bomber at an important summit in three days.

In most books, this would be a climax of the story, with the three days used to flesh out the plot and build tension as all the characters we know are in one place.

In this series, the author immediately does a three-day time skip and this plotline is used as the inciting incident for the rest of the book.

At my time of writing, I've finished the main trilogy and I'm checking out the fourth book, Iron Gold.

If Pierce Brown keeps up this level of quality, this series will earn its place as one of my favorite series of all time.

Until next time,